Archives: oliver k woodman

Oliver the Geobug Update

Just wanted to let you know that the Oliver K. Woodman Geobug is now in a travel bug hotel in Portland, Oregon!  He has already traveled 2254.5 miles!! 
A travel bug hotel is a geocache that is located near a highly traveled place–like an interstate.  This one is located outside a hotel near the Portland airport.  This allows lots of geobugs (travelbugs) to move in and out of the cache quickly and travel far.  We’ll cross our fingers that this will happen for Oliver!
The Oliver K. Woodman Wiki

The Oliver K. Woodman Wiki

I’ve updated the info on the Oliver K. Woodman wiki  and included the note the geocacher left too.  You can find it under Pictures and Videos.   

Ruler in Google Earth

Ruler in Google Earth

If you are following Oliver with your class, take a second to view his map on the wiki.  You’ll even see a link where you can open it in google earth.  Once in google earth, you can use the ruler tool to measure the distance he has traveled.  You can also measure how far he has left to go!
 
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Sending Oliver K. (Geobug) on his way

oliverkOur 2nd grade students ihave been reading the book, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman by Darcy Pattison. It’s a story about a wooden man, Oliver K. Woodman, that is sent from an Uncle in Rock Hill, SC to his niece in Redcrest, CA. Oliver moves from place to place in the book through the kindness of strangers who pick him and and help him travel all the way across the United States.

After reading the book, following his travels on google earth, and learning about communities we decided it would be fun for the students to send their own Oliver on a journey. Since students have also been learning about geocaching, we decided to tie the two things together and create a traveling Oliver K. Woodman geobug. We planted him at a local tourist spot, and hope to map him as he makes his way across the United States to Redcrest, CA. Just like in the book, we are counting on the kindness of strangers to move him from one geocache to another. If you run across him, please help us by moving him along. The students would also love to see pictures of his travels!

As he moves, the classes will use their mapping skills to follow him, and hopefully learn a little of geography. We’ll also be interested in what types of communities he move through (urban, suburban, or rural).

You can learn more about this project on our wiki: http://oliverkwoodman.wikispaces.com.

cache

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Projects, Projects, Projects

This article is a follow up to yesterday’s inservice at Clearbrook.  We discussed Global Projects, Using Skype, Wiki Ideas, and Geocaching and Geobugs.  Wow, that was a lot of stuff!
 
Shelia Terry from Virginia Beach was able to skype with us and talk a little about her use with Skype with her students there.  She gave us some great information about skype, and send us a link to more Skype info on her wiki!    

We also talked a lot about some existing global projects you can join.  One of the project places I highlighted was the site by Jen Wagner.  I love her projects!!
 
The other project I mentioned by name was the skype project called Mission 00 Rain about Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  I remember that a few of you were interested in it as well.  It’s for grades 1-3, but you need to register by Oct. 10! 
 
Finally, we did some geocaching and talked about geobugs.  In case you all are interested in geocaching for fun, the geocaching site is www.geocaching.com.  You can create an account for free, and download the locations of caches to many types of gps units.  The newer ones for cars will even let you do this.  It’s tons of fun, and they are EVERYWHERE…so it’s also great for family trips or vacations. 
 
If you and your class want to track the Big Lick Geobug, here’s it’s story.
http://tcoffey.edublogs.org/2009/06/03/geobugs/
 
Finally, an Oliver K. Woodman Geobug will be leaving Roanoke in the next few weeks.  He’s heading to Redcrest, California.  If you’ve read the book, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman, you’ll know why!  Let me know if you want me to come to your class, show a geobug, and get your started following him too.  :)
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